The initial concept was 3 cousins competing to get pregnant first to win their inheritance from a eccentric, rich and dying, Grampa. Milli, I came up with first and pretty much left unchanged, Alex and Ada both ended up getting a few different hair colors before I settled on their finished looks.
At this point in time I still want, at some point the story, to involve them trying to get pregnant to get their inheritances. Also fun fact, the original name for the comic was going to be InheritTENSE as a play on tense fucking (to get pregnant). The name was dumb but needed something as a placeholder. Eventually had to google weird english words and went through a list of a few hundred words before came across Shippon way down in the S’s. Shippon I guess means a cow barn in England or something like that and around that same time I was noodling around the sci-fi aspect of them being way out in a tiny space colony and it seemed fitting. I describe ShipponGirls as meaning something similar to “redneck” or “whitetrash” or Eurotrash” as a sort of derogatory term for people living way away from civilization on a backwards little space rock.
I developed the story as I went along so at this point some major differences, besides the focus on getting impregnated fast, was the girls didn’t live together, there was no girly mag or neighbor guys, and it was set in modern times on Earth.
I like to jump head first and start drawing before I worry about the destination, so many core parts of the comic weren’t a part of it when I started. I world build while I draw so the 10hrs or so that I sat drawing I was coming up with scenarios for the characters and eventually wanted to broaden the story away from a quest to get pregnant into something with some lasting power. So now it is a story about the characters becoming entrepreneurs and starting up Tortuga’s (the name of the space colony) first nudie mag SHIPPON GIRLS.
As I write this I am sure the comic will still evolve a great deal and may end up completely different, I hope you enjoy the journey with me and the comic.